Berlin, July 15, 2015 — BlackBridge, a leading provider of satellite imagery and geospatial solutions, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement for Planet Labs to acquire the RapidEye suite of core offerings. Planet Labs is a provider of a dataset of satellite imagery based in San Francisco, California, that designs, builds, and operates a fleet of earth imaging satellites.
This is the next step toward achieving BlackBridge’s mission to explore the earth to empower decisions, which aligns perfectly with Planet Labs’ mission. For years, BlackBridge has served customers across a broad range of domains, but has fundamentally focused on agriculture, energy and infrastructure, consumer mapping, government, business intelligence, and environmental and social impact. The result of this union with Planet Labs is expected to increase the value BlackBridge provides to existing customers and provide the means to expand into new domains.
The company is expected to operate largely as it does today. It is anticipated that customers will continue to experience the exceptional service they have come to expect from BlackBridge and will soon see the benefits of this new alliance.
BlackBridge’s CEO, Ryan Johnson is confident in the potential for growth that this opportunity brings. “The combination of BlackBridge’s downstream knowledge and global reach, with Planet Labs’ strategy for agile aerospace, will create a long-term competitive advantage for the combined company. We expect the industry to become far more competitive over the next number of years with traditional players implementing new strategies and new competitors entering. The ability to continue to lead and adapt quickly to changing needs will be the key to continued success.”
Will Marshall, Planet Labs’ CEO, strongly believes that “Planet and BlackBridge have great mission alignment and offer complementary capabilities. BlackBridge brings a significant, global book of business and a substantial five-meter data archive from which to monitor global change. We’re excited to fold their talented team, data collection, and deep industry roots into our rapidly growing operation.”
The transaction is subject to the customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the third quarter of 2015. For more information, read Ryan Johnson’s open letter and Planet Lab’s blog post.
BlackBridge provides end-to-end solutions across the geospatial value chain. This includes satellite operations, ground station services, data center and geocloud solutions, worldwide distribution through over one hundred BlackBridge partners, and the creation of value-added products and services. For more information, please visit blackbridge.com or follow the company on Twitter @BlackBridgeCorp.
Planet Labs is a San Francisco-based provider of imagery that designs, builds, and operates the world’s largest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites. Planet’s mission is to image the entire Earth, every day, which is foundational to solving commercial, environmental, and humanitarian challenges. This unprecedented and timely access to global and local insights is currently either impossible or cost-prohibitive to obtain. Learn more at http://www.planet.com or follow us on Twitter @planetlabs or email [email protected] for more information.
